Underage Sexual Assault Victim Faces Jail Time...For Tweeting the Names of Her Attackers (UPDATED)

CrazyCapnMorgan

Is not insane, just crazy >:)
Jan 5, 2011
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Godisdigestingyou said:
I find it interesting that there are so many people saying that the girl should be punished for breaking the law, but no one seems to want to touch on the subject that she is apparently okay with going to jail for what she did, if only to ensure that her attackers get what she believes they deserve.

I don't care what you do. If your willing to give up your freedom for it, it bears further scrutiny than "such a tragedy, but thems the breaks."

I know my life would be a lot different now if 60 years ago people were afraid to go to jail for doing what they thought was right.
This, also, is an interesting facet in this story. Perhaps no one mentions it because it's not as sensational as the other parts to this? Regardless, you bring up an intersting point.

Imagine what happened if Rosa Parks didn't have the courage to do what she did. Or MLK Jr. Or Lenny Bruce, or Ghandi or the many others that have shaped the course of human history with such courage.

Granted, Ms. Dietrich's courage may not be on their level...but it is something to consider.
 

ThatDarnCoyote

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Dec 3, 2011
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I suggest a compromise:

She gets charged, because court orders have to mean something. Then the prosecutor cuts her a sweetheart deal (probation plus expungement, for example), because fuck those guys.
 

2733

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Sep 13, 2010
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NightHawk21 said:
Would someone explain to me what exactly the boys did. I would be nice if we knew exactly what the boys did. Regardless of that however I don't think she was in the write to say their names, and she definitely should not have done it now. It would've been smarter to wait until the end of the case and see what if any punishment they get, and then respond.

Still it would be nice to know what exactly the guys did. If they actually raped her, and are still being tried as youths, than that's messed up. Here in Ontario from 14 (I think) you can start being tried as an adult based on the severity of the crime. I have to imagine similar laws exist in the states, and the legal system there is not that messed up.
given that they pleaded to sexual abuse in the first degree, which is the subjection of another person to sexual contact who is incapable of consent. That's class D felony in Kentucky, so it must have been bad to plea down to abuse, and these boys are not getting off scott free.

on a somewhat related side note the version of the statute in my home state of Oregon includes a section about making minors touch animals inappropriately...maybe I should move.
 

dystopiaINC

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Aug 13, 2010
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ok what are people not getting about the legal system here? Plea deals happen all the time, and for many reasons. The defendant could have info about another case, they could have weak evidence and they want to secure a conviction. So they manged to plea down to a lesser charge. That happens, I have no idea why in this case my guess was they wanted a conviction at any cost and neither side wanted to risk going to a trial.

what she did was against a court order, they were minors and they had a right to stay out of the public eye, it doesn't matter what crime they committed, they were not charged as adults, and they had that right. what she did was illegal, and just because she wasn't pleased with their sentence does not give her the right to breach their rights by outing them to the public. the fact they weren't charged as adults tells me that the actually crime probably wasn't rape, but i don't know, I just know that if it was as serious as that and they were in a 15-17 y/o range they probably would have been bumped up to adults.
 

HardkorSB

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Mar 18, 2010
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CrazyCapnMorgan said:
If the boys didn't do something incredibly stupid at a party when they see a cute teenage girl passed out...would we even be having this discussion in the first place?

My opinion: Don't wanna be known for doing something stupid? Don't do it. And especially don't take pictures of the ordeal, share it with friends and not expect something bad to happen because of it.

Taking advantage of someone when they are at their most vulnerable is dispicable at best and demonic at worst. Those boys do not get any sympathy from me.

If the girl receives any jail time, I will consider it to be a tremendous failure on the part of the justice system. Fines and/or other reprimands, to me, are acceptable in this case.
So let's give their names and addresses to everyone and let them deliver their own brand of justice.
That's the right thing to do.
And while we're at it, let's put a big scarlet "R" on their chests, just in case some people don't know who they are.

Seriously, they're probably going to have a hard life from now because of it. No college will want to enroll them, no company will want to hire them. Unless their parents are rich, they'll have a shitty life because of this 1 stupid thing they did. We don't need self-righteous people showing their moral superiority by waiting in front of thir houses and ganging up on them every time they go outside.
The girl probably wanted them executed or locked up for life (which is somewhat natural of a response in this case but irrational nevertheless) and anything below that is unacceptable to her. I understand the emotions behind it but this isn't justice anymore, it's revenge. That's why she faces jail time.
I think that, even if the verdict was more strict, she would post their names anyway (again, this isn't uncommon, considering what they've done but you just don't do that).
 

Flight

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Mar 13, 2010
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Suki_ said:
Yes dam those courts for upholding laws and stuff.
It's less that and more that her rapists got off easily, and yet she got punished for as a direct result of the system failing. When the justice system ceases to do that, then they can worry about the rest.

Apparently, though, the charges against her are being dropped, so the court appears to agree that this wasn't fair.
 

Flight

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Mar 13, 2010
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Suki_ said:
Who says they got off easy? All we knew is that she thinks they got off easy not that they actually did.


Also if you read the article they said they were dropping the charges because they are pointless now.
They had a plea deal and got to remain anonymous - after going so far as to post pictures of the assault on the internet.

That sounds a little suspect, frankly. They also said it has "nothing" to do with public support for the poor girl, which I'm disinclined to believe.
 

AgedGrunt

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Dec 7, 2011
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Kahunaburger said:
They don't want to be known as sex offenders? Maybe they should have thought of that before they committed sexual assualt.

Excellent news:

QuantumT said:
FWIW, the contempt motion has been withdrawn, so it's somewhat of a moot point now:

http://www.courier-journal.com/article/20120723/NEWS01/307230081/Contempt-motion-withdrawn-sexual-assault-victim-Savannah-Dietrich-who-tweeted-attackers-names%22
Considering they're minors, publicizing the names is at least a debatable issue. Still, the use of public pressure to circumvent a court order sets a bad precedent. The names were not listed in some official registry or domain for public access, they were published in dramatic fashion on Twitter, which is becoming the virtual lynch mob of the Internet.

Miss Dietrich was violated publicly (Facebook). As disgusting as that is, and as much as we want to see the assailants suffer consequences, there *is* something wrong with intending harm, but it's being passed over in light of her suffering. From an ethics perspective that's unsettling, it means the public is choosing what it can ignore when it, by some sort of emotional osmosis, feels personally wronged.

Look, it's one thing to make criminal names available to the public, but it's another to *incite* the public, then crowdsource to apply unilateral legal pressure. The people created a justice system to decide matters, it's not fair that we reserve the right to interject and decide what we feel is right, when we feel it. You can call this a victory but it is not a solution.
 

Darkmantle

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Oct 30, 2011
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I think there is an underlying problem with the girls thinking here, why shouldn't we give smaller punishments to people who straight up confess? I would think incentivizing admitting your crimes and co-operating with the police would be a good thing.
 

Madmonk12345

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Jun 14, 2012
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HardkorSB said:
So let's give their names and addresses to everyone and let them deliver their own brand of justice.
That's the right thing to do.
And while we're at it, let's put a big scarlet "R" on their chests, just in case some people don't know who they are.
She did not doc drop the perpetrators of this crime; she just gave the names. There seems to be little way for people to hunt them down. The only people who could enact such vigilante justice would be people who knew where he lived, and given that pictures were sent around by said perpetrators, I find the odds of that pool of people who would perform such vigilante justice increased significantly to be rather limited.

If she had doc dropped the perpetrators, there would have been pretty widespread disapproval of her actions, and much less to argue about, but that isn't what happened.

Also, the court apparently dropped the claim of contempt, so it's pretty apparent what they thought about the charges.

Also, the plea bargain made seems to be between attorneys, with the victim left out of decisionmaking, and given that the plea bargain makes statements about what the victim can do legally, she probably should have been given an opportunity to refuse the acceptance of said plea bargain, which included preventing her from discussing the crime at all, not just their names.
 

AgedGrunt

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Dec 7, 2011
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Madmonk12345 said:
Also, the court apparently dropped the claim of contempt, so it's pretty apparent what they thought about the charges.
http://www.courier-journal.com/arti...h-who-tweeted-attackers-names"?nclick_check=1

David Mejia, an attorney for one of the teens, said given that the story has gone global because of a piece Saturday in The Courier-Journal, there was no reason to continue the contempt motion.

What could contempt do now? Mejia said in an interview, adding that the boys names have already been circulated far beyond the original tweet. Seems like a rather useless exercise doesn't it?
The motion was dropped because the case has gone full nuclear. What is pretty apparent is that the best legal tool to have is the Internet following you.

What really sucks is that nothing has been solved here, this is a single case that people got emotional over, but now the Internet will feel vindication and pat itself on the back, leaving the mess they think of the justice system for someone else to clean up.
 

Kahunaburger

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May 6, 2011
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AgedGrunt said:
Kahunaburger said:
They don't want to be known as sex offenders? Maybe they should have thought of that before they committed sexual assualt.

Excellent news:

QuantumT said:
FWIW, the contempt motion has been withdrawn, so it's somewhat of a moot point now:

http://www.courier-journal.com/article/20120723/NEWS01/307230081/Contempt-motion-withdrawn-sexual-assault-victim-Savannah-Dietrich-who-tweeted-attackers-names%22
Considering they're minors, publicizing the names is at least a debatable issue. Still, the use of public pressure to circumvent a court order sets a bad precedent. The names were not listed in some official registry or domain for public access, they were published in dramatic fashion on Twitter, which is becoming the virtual lynch mob of the Internet.

Miss Dietrich was violated publicly (Facebook). As disgusting as that is, and as much as we want to see the assailants suffer consequences, there *is* something wrong with intending harm, but it's being passed over in light of her suffering. From an ethics perspective that's unsettling, it means the public is choosing what it can ignore when it, by some sort of emotional osmosis, feels personally wronged.

Look, it's one thing to make criminal names available to the public, but it's another to *incite* the public, then crowdsource to apply unilateral legal pressure. The people created a justice system to decide matters, it's not fair that we reserve the right to interject and decide what we feel is right, when we feel it. You can call this a victory but it is not a solution.
I'm pretty okay with sex offender having to deal with society knowing they're sex offenders. And apparently the court is, too.